


will he

by snaeken



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Break Up, M/M, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 21:19:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16710211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snaeken/pseuds/snaeken
Summary: "I'm home," Liam calls as he turns the key in the lock.And is met with a packed bag at the door.





	will he

**Author's Note:**

> I started this a good month or so ago during Big Bang Hell as a break from that story, and I'm only just getting the chance to finish it now. Go figure.  
> It's a tiny bit angsty. Blame joji's song.

Liam sighs as he trudges up the stairs in his apartment building, another long day at work finally over. He reaches his floor and the sound of fighting a few doors down from his place travels through the thin walls out into the hallway. It’s pretty commonplace, honestly. Barely a night goes by without some sort of disruption from one of their many neighbours. More than once _he’s_  been guilty of being the disruption, to be fair.

 _Soon_ , he thinks. Soon they'll be able to afford a place in a better building, better neighbourhood. Soon they can leave behind the sounds of fighting, their own negativity, give themselves a fresh start in a fresh place and go back to how they used to be together.

"I'm home," Liam calls as he turns the key in the lock.

And is met with a packed bag at the door.

It takes a moment for Liam to process what he's seeing, process the implications of it. He didn't think Nolan was actually being _serious_ , just figured it was another empty threat from their latest argument. He’s threatened it before - so has Liam actually, more than once - but neither of them have ever taken it this far. Usually they just say it as a way to end their latest argument, a desperate attempt to claw back some civility that has become all but commonplace with how often they’ve said done it now. Neither of them have gone as far as packing a bag before, though.

"Nolan?" he calls again, panic welling up in his chest and desperation creeping into his voice, shaking like the unstable foundations of their relationship.

Not bothering to take off his shoes at the door (there are much bigger things to worry about right now than a dirty carpet), he hurries through their apartment for the entire few seconds it takes to get from the door to the living room. Nolan is in there, sitting on the couch staring at the TV; it's not even switched on, Nolan's just staring at it, blank-faced.

He lifts his gaze to Liam's and there's nothing there. No upset, no anger, nothing. The hissing in Liam’s brain almost makes it seem like the TV really is switched on, Nolan watching him with the empty stare of a static screen.

“You’ve seen it, then,” he says. It’s a statement, not a question.

Liam wants to shake him, to scream at him, to tell him to stop being so ridiculous. _Of course_  he saw it, it’s been placed right in the entryway, impossible to miss.

“Do you mean it?” he asks, voice small, weak, like the first crack in their relationship. Even the smallest crack can grow into a gaping fissure if left untended though.

"We don't _work_  anymore, Liam. You know we don't."

And it's true, is the thing. Liam can't even dispute it; every attempted conversation just devolves into another argument, as bad as their neighbours down the hall. It’s not as if either of them is doing it intentionally, it’s just become so routine that they don’t know how to stop.

Nolan buries his face in his hands and sighs, dragging his splayed fingers down until they’re hanging loosely in front of him. "I've met someone."

Liam opens and closes his mouth a few times, trying to process yet another piece of information that doesn't make sense. The hissing turns up a notch, the static blurring into the corners of his vision. "Oh," he settles on.

"They care about me. They..." Nolan's blank façade finally cracks, his voice wavering and his eyes shining wet. The foundations collapse, the entire building crumbling down into the gaping fissure, everything swallowed by the abyssal black in the blink of an eye. "They're going to treat me the way I deserve to be treated." He can hear the _better than you have_  even though Nolan hasn’t said it. "You deserve better, too."

Liam's legs feel like jelly and he can't stand anymore. He sits down on the couch next to Nolan, not missing the way Nolan ever so slightly moves away from him so that their legs aren't brushing.

"Man or woman?" Liam finally asks.

Nolan shakes his head. "Doesn't matter."

Liam puts his head in his hands, brushing his fringe out of the way when it falls into his face. It's like his body still hasn't grasped the severity of the situation, the initial panic from earlier completely gone. The dust is settling, leaving silence in its wake.

"And have you... and they..."

" _No. Never._ " There’s steel in his gaze, an honesty that can’t be fabricated. Liam believes him. "I told him-" Nolan cuts himself off, sighing. He dropped his ace card face-up on the floor, the secret he was guarding close to his chest revealed for the other player to see. "I told him nothing would happen between us while I was still in a relationship."

And now he's not.

Liam won't plead, won't beg Nolan to stay. He knows things have been bad between them for a while now, knows they haven't been treating each other right, knows they really haven’t tried hard enough to fix it before it became irreparable. Something like this was slowly becoming inevitable and it felt like they were both powerless to stop it, speeding trains on a collision course for destruction.

"Will he- Will he treat you well?"

"I hope so," Nolan says. He grabs Liam's hand and squeezes his eyes shut, the way he always does when he's about to cry. "I didn't want it to end like this," he whispers.

As they sit there in silence, hand in hand, Liam can't help but wonder about the new man in Nolan's life. Will he be able to tell Nolan's mood just from the way he kisses first thing in the morning? Will he get into Nolan's side of the bed first, warming it up so that Nolan won't be cold when he finally gets in? Will he know that Nolan loves blueberry pancakes but won't eat blueberries on their own? Will he map out Nolan's body with his eyes, his hands, his lips, finding all the spots that cause Nolan to make Liam's favourite sounds?

Will he treat Nolan better than Liam has?

Liam loosens his grip on Nolan's hand, not ready to let go but as ready as he'll ever be. For a fraction of a second Nolan tightens his grip, making a pained, guttural sound deep in his throat. Liam holds his nerve, keeps pulling away despite every cell in his body screaming for him not to, despite his world crumbling to dust in his hands, and Nolan lets go.

"Goodbye, Li."

"Goodbye, Noley."

He pauses just before the hallway, fingers gripping onto the doorframe as he looks back at Liam over his shoulder. A tear slides down Nolan’s cheek, curving in a track down to his bottom lip and it hits Liam that this is going to be his last view of Nolan, his face stricken with the pain that Liam has caused him.

He’s free to build himself a new foundation now, one which won’t become riddled with cracks and holes along the line, one which Nolan and his new man will maintain and cherish, not allowing it to crumble and fall into disrepair.

Nolan deserves the opulence of a palace, the security of a fortress. He deserves a love worth all the money in the world, that reassurance that he will never want for anything. He deserves the type of love money _can’t_  buy, the once in a lifetime sustainability where two hearts coalesce into one.

The apartment door opens and closes.

There are no earth-shaking tremors, no world-shattering cataclysms. There is no white noise, blasting his eardrums to smithereens. There is no dust to swirl up into a storm, to settle down into tranquility. There is only silence.

And Liam is left alone.


End file.
